Notes:

The current estimate for the number of chapters is now expected to be 6 instead of 5. Also updated the list of content warnings in the beginning notes of chapter 1 to include a few more things. You may have noticed that the "new" additions (recurring physical pain, mental trauma, disturbing and/or gruesome imagery, and nausea and vomiting) also technically apply to the chapters I've already posted and not just future ones, but hey, better late than never.

Chapter 3: Process of elimination

Shizuo eyed the bathrooms carefully.

There was a men's room and a women's room. Shizuo quietly cracked open the doors to each bathroom, but saw nobody. If Izaya was in there, he must have been hidden in one of the stalls. The problem was, whichever bathroom Shizuo picked first ran the risk of letting Izaya escape if he turned out to be in the other one, because Shizuo would have to go all the way inside to investigate the stalls. From here, he could watch the hallway, but once he was in the bathroom...

Shizuo loitered in the hallway for a bit. He considered getting something to block the hallway with so Izaya couldn't escape, but he didn't see anything nearby that he could use for that. He still had the metal pole from before, but he was reluctant to put it down just in case Izaya came racing through.

Wait, what if he tried calling him on the phone? Maybe he could hear the ringtone and know which bathroom to choose.

Shizuo took out his phone again, dialing the number that Izaya had called him from earlier. He heard it ringing through his own phone, but didn't notice anything audible coming from the bathrooms.

That didn't prove he wasn't in there, though. His phone could be on silent, or maybe the ringtone was just really quiet. The call eventually went to voicemail, and after leaving a particularly eloquent message of 'fuck you,' Shizuo hung up.

Damn. He really thought he was onto something for a moment there.

Okay, so if Izaya had chosen a room at random, then Shizuo would have a 50/50 shot at guessing correctly. The same would apply if Shizuo chose randomly. He couldn't even begin to guess what Izaya's thought process would be if it wasn't random, so he wasn't particularly inclined to try.

He only had one shot at this...

• • • • •

Ringing filled Izaya's ears as his vision swam in and out of focus.

It was hard to see his surroundings in any detail, but from what he could observe, Izaya seemed to be lying on the floor of what appeared to be the stall of a public bathroom, but he had no idea how he got there. He couldn't even remember entering a bathroom in the first place.

Did I fall...?

Everything was spinning. Did he have a concussion, maybe? If he fell, maybe he hit his head. But as he slowly regained full awareness, that was when the pain hit.

Pain radiated up and down his spine with such intensity that Izaya nearly screamed. But instead, he gagged, and he immediately sat up and started retching into the toilet, bringing up what little had been in his stomach.

Urgh... Not a good sign. But that didn't necessarily confirm a concussion. Even though nausea and vomiting were one of the symptoms to look out for, it also wasn't unusual for Izaya to become violently ill if he'd accidentally banged his leg on something. There was something about the specific sensation that would always put his stomach in knots.

And given the sharp, pulsating feeling that was currently running down his spine and legs, worsened even further now that he'd moved, he suspected that was what triggered him to lose consciousness.

Still, didn't he normally have his wheelchair nearby when this happened? Usually, Izaya was either in the wheelchair or had been moving to or from it when he sustained these types of injuries.

So, how did he...?

Then the revelation hit him like a truck.

Shizuo had been chasing him. Izaya's current state could easily be explained by having had something thrown at him at high speed.

Izaya reacted viscerally, recoiling back out of fear that he was about to be attacked again.

But there was nobody there.

Confusion overwhelmed him. If he wasn't attacked, how did he wind up on the floor...? He'd already suspected that he'd injured his legs, but how? He didn't think running would be enough to cause pain of this severity.

Izaya tried to recount his actions. He ran down the stairs. He didn't see Shizuo behind him, so he turned and went into the bathrooms to hide. He opened the stall door, and closed it behind him. Then he worried that his feet would be visible under the door if Shizuo came in looking for him, so Izaya—

Ah.

He'd made a mistake again.

Izaya had come up with the brilliant idea to start climbing on the toilet seat so his feet couldn't be seen. And then his foot slipped off the toilet seat and slammed into the ground. Hard.

Izaya immediately knew it would be bad. As usual, the pain didn't hit him right away. He had just enough time to think the words, oh crap, before everything faded to black.

Izaya scowled. What a stupid reason to be passed out on the floor. He couldn't afford to have things like this happen when Shizuo was actively pursuing him. He needed to be fully aware of his surroundings at all times, not to mention that collapsing on the floor certainly would have made—

A slamming noise sounded from nearby, and Izaya recoiled, bringing his legs up closer to himself.

What was that? Was that Shizuo? It didn't sound like it came from the bathroom Izaya was in, but rather the one next to it. He was probably looking through the stalls, by the sound of it. But it was only a matter of time before he checked this one.

Izaya hastily got up and left the stall, then made a beeline for the door. He reached out to grab the handle when he froze. What if he misheard? What if the noise was from just outside, and Shizuo was in the hallway a mere two feet away? If he opened that door...

His hand started to tremble violently. Was Shizuo even guaranteed to find him in here if he stayed? After all, Izaya was in the women's bathroom, and Shizuo seemed to have this weird moral code that prevented him from doing certain things, even when it made very little sense in the grand scheme of things. Izaya could distinctly recall a time when Shizuo refused to fight him for the simple reason of 'you're supposed to be quiet in the library.'

It was hilarious and aggravating at the same time, because apparently this moral code did not strictly apply to destroying public property or attempted murder. If Shizuo thought things through rationally, he'd know that there was virtually no chance of accidentally walking in on some innocent woman in the bathroom in a place like this.

He flinched when he heard another slamming noise, this time more obvious that it had come from the other bathroom and not the hallway. That probably ruled out Shizuo being right outside the door, so this was Izaya's chance to escape. But would he have enough time to sneak by him?

Izaya's hands were still shaking badly as he reached for the door handle again, and he slowly opened the door. It didn't squeak, thankfully, and Izaya quietly slipped out. He was just about to make a run for it when he noticed a problem.

The door to the other bathroom had been propped open.

That door had not been open when Izaya came through here before, which meant that Shizuo had propped it open intentionally. He must have been making sure that Izaya couldn't sneak by while he was searching.

Izaya hesitated, and he couldn't work up the nerve to make himself move this time. Shizuo was just waiting for him to go by, and Izaya didn't think he could outrun him a second time.

Maybe he should just go back into the other bathroom and hope Shizuo would be unwilling to trespass into the women's room...

But Shizuo probably wasn't just standing there and staring at the door, either, was he? He could do that from the hallway. No, he was supposedly in there to check the stalls, not guard the doorway.

Which meant that Shizuo would be turned away from the door when—

Another loud slam spurred Izaya into action, and he dashed past the open doorway. Even after he was safely out of view of the bathrooms, Izaya kept running, unsure whether Shizuo had spotted him or not.

He checked over his shoulder, and after seeing that Shizuo wasn't following him, Izaya ducked into a dark bookstore. He would have run even farther, but Izaya wanted to get out of sight as quickly as possible. Just because Shizuo wasn't obviously chasing him didn't mean that he hadn't noticed Izaya leaving, and Izaya didn't want to give him any opportunities to figure out which way he went.

Izaya hid behind a bookshelf, crouching down a little as the bookshelves were rather short. But even after waiting for several seconds, nothing happened. No thrown objects, no screams of 'Where are you, you damned flea?!' Nothing.

He gave it another minute to be safe, but maybe Shizuo truly hadn't noticed him escape? At the very least, Shizuo hadn't figured out that Izaya was in the bookstore, or else he would have come barreling through to get him by now.

Izaya let out a quiet, breathy chuckle. He thought Shizuo would chase after him for sure.

He wouldn't go so far as to say he was safe, but Izaya would take what he could get right now. Every minute that he managed to elude Shizuo was another minute that would wear on Shizuo's determination to keep hunting him down. Kawasaki may be feeding Shizuo information, but the frustration of being strung along like this for so long should prompt him to give up.

Now satisfied that Shizuo wasn't about to jump out at him, Izaya started working his way back towards the store entrance to check if the coast was clear so he could leave. If he lingered here too long, Kawasaki would call Shizuo again with his new location.

He passed by an aisle of toys. They'd sometimes have these little toy sections inside bookstores. Izaya never really paid much attention to them.

But then all hell broke loose.

A noise to Izaya's right made him shriek. He immediately lost his balance and bumped into a nearby bookshelf, which apparently was not very stable as it started falling over. Izaya, who now had nothing to grab onto once the bookshelf shifted, met the same fate as the bookshelf and they both wound up falling to the floor with a loud crash.

Izaya recoiled further from the source of the noise he heard originally, but he had trouble localizing where the sound was coming from right away. Only after the chaos had died down did Izaya hear what startled him.

On one of the shelves was a little stuffed dog, barking out the theme to Jingle Bells. The damn thing must have been motion activated.

And there was no way in hell Shizuo didn't hear the ruckus that Izaya just made.

Izaya got back onto his feet and started to make a run for it, only to suddenly abort the action when he remembered how close by Shizuo was, assuming that he was still hanging around by the bathrooms.

He'd be in the hallway by now. He'd see me for sure if I ran.

"Fuck," Izaya hissed.

He doubled back towards the dog, and he grabbed it as he frantically looked for the power button. He turned it every which way, but saw no way to turn it off, and Izaya really didn't want to be holding this thing when it was making noise, so he launched it outside the store to get it away from him. The stuffed dog hit the opposing wall with decent force, yet it continued happily yipping away without a care in the world.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck..." he cursed. There were no good hiding places in here. The shelves were all too short. The only good thing about the place was that it was dark and made Izaya harder to see.

Izaya moved deeper into the bookstore, keeping to the darker portion of the store and hoping that Shizuo wouldn't make the connection between this place and the dog. Or better yet, he could assume that Izaya had already left.

All the while, the dog continued barking. It probably wouldn't stop on its own until the batteries ran out.

Shizuo was bound to show up any second now...

• • • • •

Shizuo was standing in the middle of the hallway, having grabbed the metal pole again that he'd used to prop the door open and raced over when he heard the commotion. He must have picked the wrong bathroom. Damn it.

He now stood staring at a little stuffed dog that was barking out the theme to Jingle Bells for some reason. He didn't make a move to approach it, assuming it was some kind of trap.

Instead, Shizuo just scanned the surrounding area, watching for movement. After determining nothing else was going to happen, he slowly advanced on the dog and picked it up with his free hand. He looked around again, expecting something would happen when he took the bait.

But no. It was just him and the dog.

Shizuo inspected the dog a little more, and found a button embedded in its fur. He pressed it, and the barking stopped, surrounding him with silence once more.

...Huh. No explosions or gunfire yet. He would have thought that'd trigger something, but apparently not.

He looked around again and noticed a bookstore nearby. Shizuo could see an overturned bookshelf, which had left books and various other items strewn across the floor. The sight confused him for a moment. Was this Izaya's doing? What would have compelled him to knock the thing over? Maybe it was just to get Shizuo's attention so he could lure him inside.

Still holding the dog, he slowly stepped inside the store, fully aware that this was likely part of Izaya's plan. It was dark in here; the perfect place to ambush him if Shizuo weren't already expecting it.

The smell of dust and old books invaded Shizuo's nostrils. But there was something else. A faint whiff of something he recognized. It didn't quite strike him as 'flea-stink,' but it was a very familiar scent regardless, so it was probably him.

Shizuo slowly set the dog down on a nearby bookshelf, making a mental note to come back for it later. It didn't feel right to leave this cute little thing here by itself. He could add it to his collection at home.

Shifting his thoughts back to the task at hand, Shizuo gripped the pole in his hands tighter.

Now... Where are you?

• • • • •

...So apparently there was a way to turn that little dog off.

Well, it didn't matter now. It seemed that Shizuo had already made the connection between the dog and the bookstore, so now Izaya was trapped in here as Shizuo stepped inside and started looking around.

For now, there wasn't much Izaya could do except continue hiding, but he was undecided if he should just wait him out and avoid him until Shizuo was satisfied that he wasn't here, or if he should try to sneak out while Shizuo was distracted. Waiting seemed like the safer option for now.

He wasn't thrilled to see that Shizuo was still carrying the pole from the clothing rack. It kept giving Izaya flashbacks to his time in Ikebukuro, back when Shizuo would uproot whatever was at hand and try to hit him with it. But what was different was the expression on Shizuo's face. It was cold and calculating; not the usual look of fury that Izaya had come to expect from him. Then again, Izaya had already seen a glimpse of this side of him during their last fight. It was pretty similar to when Shizuo had decided to hold nothing back in his attempts to kill him.

Izaya closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about that again. He didn't want any more reminders of what happened three years ago, and he really didn't want to go through this again.

Izaya reminded himself that he should really be keeping an eye on Shizuo, so he reluctantly opened his eyes again to watch what Shizuo was doing.

Shizuo was keeping his movements slow and stealthy, much like a big cat hunting its prey. Izaya couldn't help but shiver at the comparison. What business did Shizuo have acting like that, anyway? He was supposed to be like a hurricane, destroying everything in his path, not this... calculating predator.

Izaya shifted uncomfortably. He was starting to reconsider the 'wait Shizuo out' strategy. The bookshelves were all so short that Izaya had to remain crouched down at all times, and that would have been an unpleasant position to maintain even if he wasn't injured.

Not only that, but there was also the risk of mistiming when to move if he wanted to stay out of sight. Izaya was hidden in the shadows, but once Shizuo reached this section, it would be harder to keep track of him with how dark it was. He wanted Shizuo to keep to the lighter areas where he could see him.

He could theoretically try to make a break for it, but Shizuo kept looking back at the door, no doubt making sure that Izaya wasn't sneaking out when he wasn't looking. Izaya wouldn't have enough of a head start before Shizuo spotted him.

Izaya was starting to feel dizzy. His adrenaline wasn't quite high enough to block out the pain, and his eyes kept tearing up from keeping his legs positioned like this. He furiously tried to blink the tears away that were blurring his vision. He needed to be able to see; he may only have a split second to react.

Izaya had to keep his teeth tightly clenched so he wouldn't make a noise, because he was on the verge of breaking down sobbing from the pain. He was kind of surprised he hadn't passed out yet.

And then Shizuo spoke, making Izaya jump a little.

"I know you're in here," Shizuo said. "Stop hiding."

No, Izaya thought petulantly.

It took him a while to consider that maybe being completely silent wasn't the best strategy here. He didn't have a good way out, and Shizuo surely wouldn't leave until he found him. Izaya needed to keep attention off himself, but maybe he could direct Shizuo's focus elsewhere...?

Maybe he could throw something as a distraction. He had no clue if that was a good plan or not, but Izaya couldn't think clearly through the pain and he just needed it to stop.

Izaya looked around. The shelves were stocked with plenty of books he could use, but they were all either tightly wedged in there or precariously balanced in a way that Izaya doubted he could grab one silently.

...Not to mention that a book would have been pretty obvious that it had come from inside the bookstore, since Izaya wouldn't exactly have been carrying one of those things around. He was hoping to trick Shizuo into thinking Izaya wasn't in the bookstore at all.

So that left him with what he already had on him, which included a knife and a bricked phone. The knife he may need for later, and the phone was quite useless in its current state, so...

He quietly slipped the phone out of his pocket, then once he was sure that Shizuo wasn't looking, Izaya straightened up and took aim at the store entrance. He chucked the phone somewhere outside the bookstore, which hit a far wall with a loud clatter. Izaya quickly ducked back down to get out of sight.

Then he waited. He surely had gotten Shizuo's attention with that. Ideally, Shizuo would take that as a sign that Izaya wasn't here and go off in search of him elsewhere.

He heard nothing after that. Shizuo had been walking pretty silently, so Izaya supposed that he wouldn't necessarily hear him now, but some kind of indication that Shizuo had taken the bait would be nice.

Izaya moved forward slightly and peeked around the bookshelf so he could see where the phone landed, but Shizuo didn't seem to be going for it yet. Even after several seconds had passed, the phone remained untouched.

Oh, that wasn't good. That was the opposite of good. He should have gone for it without hesitation. The fact that he hadn't moved meant that he either realized it was a decoy, or he thought it was a trap.

Now Izaya was starting to get pissed off. He had just given him something to investigate, and Shizuo was ignoring it.

It wasn't even a trap! It was just a decoy.

For god's sake, it's not a bomb! Just go GET IT!

Izaya couldn't hold his position for much longer. He tried to breathe through his nose, because if he opened his mouth, he was afraid he'd let out a sob.

Did Shizuo somehow know how much agony Izaya was in, and was just trying to prolong it?

Fuck, it hurts. Just hurry up and leave...

And then Izaya heard a noise coming from very close by and—

Oh god, he's sneaking up behind me.

Izaya leapt forward, and the sound of metal colliding with concrete rang out behind him. When he turned around to look, he saw that Shizuo had slammed the metal pole into the ground, right where Izaya was just a second prior.

What the fuck?! How did he get so close without me noticing?!

"Fuck," Shizuo growled, frustrated at having missed his target, and Izaya just stood frozen in shock.

Back when they fought in Ikebukuro, Izaya had the impression that Shizuo was holding back. He'd claim to want to kill him, but with the exception of their last fight, Shizuo never actually went for the kill when he had the chance.

But that move he had just pulled there?

That would have killed me. He's not messing around.

Izaya ran. The pain he found intolerable before had suddenly vanished as his adrenaline spiked.

"Hey, get back here!" Shizuo yelled.

Like hell!

Crap, this was what he was hoping to avoid...

• • • • •

Shizuo had been looking down an aisle of bookshelves when he heard something whizzing through the air behind him.

There was a clattering sound outside of the bookstore, but he didn't make a move to go investigate it. The initial noise he heard indicated that it had come from inside the bookstore. And he had a pretty good idea where the object had been thrown from.

He looked over towards the part of the bookstore that was enshrouded in darkness. If somebody was over there, he couldn't see them. But he now knew where Izaya was.

Rather than checking out whatever the thrown object was, Shizuo intentionally ignored it in favor of going straight for the source. If he hurried, he might be able to catch him by surprise.

It was dark and hard to see in this part of the store, so Shizuo had to strain his eyes a bit to make out his surroundings, but he could see well enough. He approached the bookshelves where he suspected the flea might be hiding and he slowed down to muffle his footsteps.

He felt a thrill of excitement when he saw Izaya there, and his excitement only escalated further when he realized the flea truly hadn't noticed him approach.

Shizuo was still on the fence on whether he wanted to kill Izaya in one blow, or if he simply wanted to incapacitate him and give him a chance to beg for his life.

Then again, when had Izaya ever begged him for mercy? The flea would probably just use the opportunity to weasel his way out of the situation, only to come back and ruin Shizuo's life some more, probably even worse than before if Shizuo injured him and didn't finish the job properly.

Just like last time...

Shizuo steeled his resolve. Izaya had quite literally asked for this. 'A true fight to the death that doesn't end until one of us comes out the clear victor.' Those were his exact words.

There was no compromise. There was no meeting each other halfway until they could come up with a solution that suited both parties.

Death was the only way out. And like hell was he going to give up his own life for Izaya's sake.

Shizuo stepped forward quietly, not wanting to alert Izaya to his presence. He normally didn't like sneak attacks, especially when he was planning to do a bit more than just stun him. It felt like an underhanded tactic, but Izaya was literally lying in wait trying to do the same thing to him.

Shizuo slowly raised the metal pole. This will all be over soon.

He thought he was being quiet enough, but then he caught the nearly imperceptible shift in Izaya's body language, and Shizuo knew what was going to happen a split second before it did. Knowing he was about to lose his chance, he brought the pole swinging down hard. He didn't even need to kill him in one shot. All he needed was to keep him from running.

But it was already too late, and the pole met nothing but hard floor. Izaya had dodged without a scratch.

"Fuck," Shizuo hissed in annoyance.

By the time he looked up again, he only had the briefest glimpse of Izaya before the flea had taken off running again.

"Hey, get back here!" Shizuo yelled.

In his haste to chase after Izaya, Shizuo accidentally snagged the metal pole he was still holding into a bookshelf, and it took several seconds for him to dislodge it, only to snap the stupid thing in half in his anger.

Damn piece of shit!

With that out of the way, he abandoned the pole and tried to catch up to Izaya. He raced out of the store and—

And he lost him again! God-fucking-dammit!

Shizuo paced around briefly in agitation, then took off running in a random direction in the vain hope that he'd stumble across Izaya, but he only succeeded in looping his way back to the bookstore again.

"Dammit..." he panted.

He had him. He fucking had him. If only Izaya hadn't noticed him. And even then, Shizuo would have had enough time to chase him if he hadn't bothered with trying to use that fucking metal pole.

Shizuo had always favored attacking using objects instead of his hands. Street signs, vending machines, guardrails, steel beams... His hands were perfectly capable as weapons on their own; that wasn't the point.

Shizuo clenched his fists, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles. The thought of having to kill somebody with his bare hands made him nauseous.

I really don't like that crunch when their bones break...

Even though he thought of Izaya like an insect, there were even some insects that he had trouble bringing himself to kill, like those that had a hard shell. They would make a horrific crunching noise when squished, and it reminded him too much of when he threw a punch at Izaya and hit his arms.

The damn flea deserved it, but it was still burned into Shizuo's memory like it had been physically branded into his brain. He really didn't want a repeat of that. With a weapon, he could distance himself, and hopefully keep any further nightmares at bay.

Of course, if it only ever allowed Izaya to escape from him, a weapon was useless. He may have to go without and just live with the consequences.

But since Izaya was turning out to be extremely hard to capture, Shizuo decided that he should probably send some texts to his friends and family to inform them of the situation. There may be no end to this game if Izaya wasn't willing to throw in the towel, and Shizuo couldn't stay here forever. He didn't have any intention to leave just yet, but he wanted to buy them enough time to get somewhere safe just in case Izaya seriously did have something planned for them.

Shizuo took out his phone and started texting them, one by one.

• • • • •

Wheezing, Izaya limped his way down yet another hallway.

Miraculously, he seemed to have escaped Shizuo once again. Somehow. He wasn't sure how he'd managed that. It was a little hard to feel grateful given how exhausted he was and how much pain he was in, but hey, a win was a win. He'd take it if that meant he was alive.

He desperately needed somewhere to sit down. If he didn't find someplace soon, he was going to pass out.

That was when he noticed a furniture store. Izaya couldn't have asked for anything more perfect.

Like the bookstore, the lights were all turned off, and Izaya picked a chair towards the back of the store where he wouldn't easily be seen from the store's entrance. Once he was in the cover of darkness, he felt a little safer again.

He collapsed into the chair, curling in on himself in agony.

"Fuck..." Izaya groaned, massaging his legs. "Fuck, that hurt so much..."

Logically, he knew he shouldn't stay long, or else Kawasaki would inform Shizuo of his whereabouts, but his legs felt like jelly. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to get up again.

He felt like he could cry. Whether that was mostly from the pain or the frustration of his situation, he wasn't sure. He had managed to avoid getting killed so far, but he knew it was only a matter of time before it happened.

Given the way he lived his life, Izaya knew he wouldn't reach old age, but he liked to believe that with enough luck, or possibly even through sheer perseverance, that maybe he could make it. He could be one of those old men that pretended to be clueless, but was secretly manipulating fun and exciting drama behind the scenes, with no one else being any the wiser. Even if they suspect him, they'll let him off the hook when he feigns a lost and confused expression, and then they'll sigh exasperatedly as they go fetch him his breakfast.

But Izaya was never going to have that, and at the rate this day was going, he wouldn't even reach his 30th birthday.

...What were the odds that this was all just a bad dream? That he'd wake up safe in his bed, and he could say that the whole thing was nothing more than a nightmare?

At least when he died in his dreams, he'd always wake up afterwards.

Izaya tensed when he heard a frustrated yell in the distance.

It sounded far enough away that Izaya didn't make a move to leave. He wasn't sure if there was a specific trigger that set Shizuo off just now, but Izaya listened carefully for further noises.

And then the PA system clicked on.

"Seriously, Shizu-chan?" Kawasaki sounded annoyed for once. "You know phones are useful for communication, right? Well, I guess if you don't want my helpful hints, have fun wandering around in the dark by yourself."

Izaya choked on a laugh. Shizuo must have broken his phone.

Hilariously, Shizuo had actually done Izaya a favor. With Shizuo and Kawasaki communicating in secret, Izaya was always kept in the dark. If his location was revealed over the phone, Izaya wouldn't even know it. But now, anything that Shizuo heard, Izaya would hear now, too.

Izaya hadn't realized just how much the threat of Kawasaki leaking Izaya's location in secret had been weighing on his mind until after it became clear that it would no longer be an issue. He finally felt like he could breathe again.

Even so, Kawasaki had probably just given away Izaya's location yet again, so it looked like break time was over for now. Despite his legs still feeling like jelly, he was able to force himself to stand up and head out of the store.

Izaya felt oddly cheery all of a sudden. Shizuo was clearly getting fed up with all of this, so he was probably on the verge of giving up any moment now. Hell, maybe Shizuo was already leaving; Izaya had no way of knowing. But surely, their game wasn't going to last too much longer at this rate.

His mood was dampened a bit as he passed by a hole in the wall that looked suspiciously like someone had punched their fist through it in a mindless rage, but Izaya quickly put it out of his mind as he went off in search of his next hiding place.

• • • • •

"Gah... so annoying..."

Shizuo had since given up on trying to follow Izaya's directions. The damn flea was clearly just leading him on a wild-goose chase anyway. 'Go back to where it all began?' What kind of bullshit was that?!

Predictably, Shizuo snapped. And so did his phone. Argh, he really should have just turned his phone off, but silly him, he thought maybe Izaya would call and say the game was over and that he could go home.

As fucking if.

At least he had already sent texts to everybody he needed to warn, or else he'd truly be screwed now that his phone had undergone cell divison, because at this point, Shizuo just wanted to leave. Yes, killing Izaya would end this once and for all, but he'd be fine with dropping the whole thing if it meant not having to be here anymore.

The bookstore was too dark to tell for sure, but he could have sworn, just for a moment, that he saw a flicker of panic in Izaya's eyes. Not that it mattered, because as soon as Izaya made his escape, he went right back to being his annoying, cocky self. Damn flea clearly wasn't learning anything from all of these near-death experiences. Though, why he should have expected any different when even their fight three years ago wasn't enough...

Shizuo idly fiddled with the cracked phone in his hands, lost in thought. This one was relatively intact despite the broken screen, though it wouldn't turn on. It wasn't his own phone, but rather, Izaya's.

He had found it in the spot near the bookstore where he heard the clattering noise, and by process of elimination, had determined that it had been the object Izaya had thrown as a distraction.

But why a phone? he wondered. There were plenty of books in the store. It seems like a waste when you had other things to choose from.

He knew the flea had multiple phones, especially given that he had called him afterwards and that he somehow also had a way to connect to the PA system, but that didn't explain why Izaya would toss something that probably had sensitive data on it. It could have been a burner phone, but this looked pretty expensive for that. It didn't seem like something he would have used as a distraction unless it was a spur of the moment thing. But wasn't Izaya trying to lure him into the bookstore? What part of that wasn't going according to plan?

'You know phones are useful for communication, right?'

"Yes, they are," he murmured. "So why?"

It just didn't make any sense...

Notes:

Some of you may recognize that little toy dog. It first made its debut in my other series called The Road to Recovery, where it had a couple of brief scenes where it would serenade people with its heartfelt songs. And it makes its triumphant return today to indulge in the simple pleasure of sending Izaya to his doooooom.